Join the Field School in Somaliland: New Call! (Watch Video & Photo for practical work) DIGNIIN DAAWASHADANI WAA MID ARGAGAXBADAN [Warning: graphic content.]

Join the Field School in Somaliland: New Call!

Forensic Anthropology and Human Rights: Organized collection of forensic evidence of human rights violations is an important step toward discovering the truth, achieving justice, and ensuring that such crimes are not repeated. Incontrovertible physical evidence of such abuses is important both for the judicial process and for the survivors, as it provides the world with an objective account and acknowledgement of the abuses suffered.

With CJA's sponsorship, the Somaliland government and the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team have opened an international forensic training program in Somaliland. The first phase of the project ran from September 24 through October 21, 2012.  The next phase will run from October 7 to November 2, 2013.

To read more and download the application form through click here.

Somaliland was a part of the former Republic of Somalia. For 21 years until his fall, the regime of Mohammed Siad Barre carried out massacres against the people of Somaliland. About 60,000 civilians were killed, thousands were victims of enforced disappearance, and 500,000 individuals were displaced before the declaration of independence, in 1991.

Since its independence, Somaliland has managed to secure the political stability, economic and social development needed to investigate the atrocities committed in the past, through a War Crimes Investigation Commission of 6 members. The forensic field school in Hargeisa will help to determine the universe of missing people through a systematic approach, ante mortem data collection and research of mass and clandestine graves.

In this 4-weeks long field school, the participants will attend virtual and in situ workshops on the culture, society, religion and post-conflict issues of Somaliland. The field school will assist in training the staff of the War Crimes Investigation Commission of Somaliland in forensic investigation of human rights violations.

At the completion of the course, the participants will have an understanding of the application of forensic sciences to the investigation of Human Rights violations, as well as the process involved in the examination, recovery and analysis of mass graves and their contents. As a norm students will spend two weeks working in the exhumation process and two weeks in the laboratory.

Al-Qaida Militants in Somalia Destroy £480,000 in UK Aid

(Photo: REUTERS / Feisal Omar): UK's £480,000 Worth Aid Looted by al-Qaida Militants in Somalia

By Vasudevan Sridharan

Humanitarian aid supplies worth £480,000 have been looted by al-Qaida-linked militants in Somalia, official documents reveal.

The supplies, which were paid for by the UK taxpayer and stored in warehouses, were stolen by al-Shabaab insurgents in 2011-12 and later believed to have been set ablaze.

The details have emerged from the annual accounts of the Department for International Development (DfID). 

The DfID did not divulge the specifics of the raids but said that all the materials seized were destroyed.

The department said it received no warning of the theft and could not have prevented it.

The facts have surfaced after a year-long investigation into a series of incidents at multiple locations.

The annual report said £480,000 was written off "following the theft between November 2011 and February 2012 of DfID-funded humanitarian supplies from the offices and warehouses of partner organisations, to which DfID had provided funding to deliver projects and programmes".

A spokesperson for the department said, "DfID works in some of the most dangerous places in the world, including Somalia, because tackling the root causes of poverty and instability there ensures a safer world and a safer UK. Working in conflict-affected and fragile states carries inherent risk."

The theft is likely to increase concern over the coalition's humanitarian aid spending at a time of severe budget cuts in the UK.

Conservative MP Gerald Howarth told the Sunday Telegraph, "There is huge public concern at the relentless increase in overseas aid. Incidents like this, where British taxpayers' money is diverted into people fighting against us, are not acceptable."

The aid budget, the only increasing item in government's expenditure, is due to reach £11bn by 2015 in order to meet the United Nations' target of 0.7% of gross national income.

An unidentified aid industry expert told the daily, "It is surprising that no action was taken, which suggests that, at best, DfID was asleep to the loss of its property and, at worst, that its local partners were colluding with the terrorists."

In 2012, al-Shabaab issued a threat against Britain, saying a coming attack would "eclipse the horrors of 7/7 and 21/7 combined".

To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail: v.sridharan@ibtimes.com
To contact the editor, e-mail: editor@ibtimes.co.uk

Source: ibtimes.co.uk

Somaliland: Join the Field School in Somaliland: New Call!

Forensic Anthropology and Human Rights

Organized collection of forensic evidence of human rights violations is an important step toward discovering the truth, achieving justice, and ensuring that such crimes are not repeated. Incontrovertible physical evidence of such abuses is important both for the judicial process and for the survivors, as it provides the world with an objective account and acknowledgement of the abuses suffered.

With CJA's sponsorship, the Somaliland government and the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team have opened an international forensic training program in Somaliland. The first phase of the project ran from September 24 through October 21, 2012.  The next phase will run from October 7 to November 2, 2013. 

For more information and an application, click here.

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The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team in Somaliland

Encouraged by a second historic peaceful election and transfer of power in Somaliland in 2010, CJA invited partner Jose Pablo Baraybar, Director of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) and Recipient of the 2011 Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award, to travel with us to Somaliland in July 2011. In collaboration with CJA, victims' families, and local government officials, including Somaliland's War Crimes Investigation Committee (WCIC), Mr. Baraybar began a preliminary assessment of the mass grave sites to determine the possibilities of providing relief to the families and preserving evidence for any future transitional justice efforts.

The field school is assisting in training the staff of the WCIC to conduct forensic investigations of human rights violations, as well as providing foreign students with meaningful fieldwork experience. The curriculum encompasses international human rights and humanitarian law as it applies to the recent history of violence in Somalia and Somaliland, as well as field training in the examination, recovery, and analysis of mass graves.
On a CJA-hosted online blog, participants reflect on the search for the missing and disappeared, giving readers a window into the process of fact-finding and forensic investigation of human rights violations in Somaliland.

CJA client Aziz Deria underscores the project's importance:

I believe both my late father Mohamed Iid and my younger brother Mustafa are among those remains in Malko Durduro and thus, for me, this initiative in Somaliland is personal.

» To see a short film about the field school, including an interview with our client, Aziz Deria, click here.
EPAF has previously trained local investigators in Peru, Nepal, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Read more about EPAF.

CJA Client Ahmed Gulaid and

Jose Pablo Baraybar, Director
of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology
Team, visit Malko Durduro, where
Mr. Gulaid miraculously survived
a massacre by firing squad in 1988.

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Mass Graves: Unearthing Evidence of Barre-era War Crimes

In 1997, heavy rains and flooding exposed evidence of mass graves in and around Somaliland's capital city of Hargeisa. [1] The bones were found in the vicinity of the former headquarters of the 26th division of the Somali National Army and the notorious execution site known as Malko Durduro.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) independent expert on Somalia, Mona Rishwami, formally requested an independent forensic examination of the sites. [2] On April 11, 1997 Physicians for Human Rights, under the auspices of UNHCHR, conducted an on-site forensic assessment of the mass graves. The forensic team examined over 100 known and alleged mass gravesites. Two sites were identified definitively as mass graves: the Malko Durduro Elementary School site and the Badhka site. At both locations the team found skeletal remains of victims apparently bound together by ropes or cloth ligatures.

Images of the forensic investigation are available here. [Warning: graphic content.]

Attorney Tara Lee of Cooley Godward Kronish LLP interviews representatives of the War Crimes

Investigation Commission in Hargeisa, Somaliland.

In response to cries for redress, the Somaliland government established a War Crimes Investigation Commission (WCIC) to investigate human rights abuses committed by the Barre regime and to support the prosecution of alleged war criminals. For these purposes, the WCIC began to identify victims and witnesses; collect testimony and other evidence; and locate, mark, register, and preserve the sites of mass graves.

In 2001 a report by a UN Special Rapporteur for Somalia indicated that many former military personnel suspected of war crimes and human rights violations had found safe haven in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. To date, only one such perpetrator, General Mohamed Ali Samantar, has been held accountable for his role in the abuses of that regime. » Read more about CJA's case Yousuf v. Samantar.

NOTES

[1] Forensic Report: Preliminary Assessment of Mass Graves in the Vicinity of Hargeisa, Somalia E/CN.4/1999/103/Add.1 (UN Commission on Human Rights, fifty-fifth session).
[2] Somalia: A Decent Burial - Somalis yearn for justice, IRIN: Humanitarian News and Analysis Service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, May 2001. Accessed August 10, 2009.

Ethiopia: Debates to be held on controversial anti-terrorism law

Graphics by Awramba Times Newspaper (September 2011)

The state-run Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency (ERTA) announced to organize debates on the nation’s deeply flawed anti-terrorism law.

Human Rights Watch, Amnestry International and other right groups have repeatedly raised concerns about the anti-terrorism law’s overly broad definition of “terrorist acts.” The law’s provisions on support for terrorism contain a vague prohibition on “moral support” under which Politicians and journalists have been convicted.

The proclamation states that “whosoever writes, edits, prints, publishes, publicizes, disseminates, shows, makes to be heard any promotional statements encouraging, supporting or advancing terrorist acts stipulated under this Proclamation is punishable with rigorous imprisonment.

However, legal analysts who have a strong knowledge on Ethiopia’s jurisprudence argue that such provisions would violate the right to freedom of expression under the constitution which is the supreme law of the nation. Click here to read in Amharic language the ERTA’s letter and UDJ’s response

Ethiopia: Ambassador Donald Booth on Islamic Extremism in Ethiopia

Donald Booth, the outgoing US ambassador 
to Ethiopia (Photo: Awramba Times)

Awramba Times (Phoenix, Arizona) – Donald Booth, the outgoing US ambassador to Ethiopia spoke out on Islamic extremism in Ethiopia. According to Mr. Booth, the measures taken by the Ethiopian government were to reduce the potential danger of religious extremism in Ethiopia. Read more

ETHIOPIA: THE EMERGENCE OF POLITICAL ISLAM IN ETHIOPIA - Wikileaks’s leaked document (Watch Documentary Secret Videos )

The emergence of political Islam in Ethiopia: Wikileaks’s leaked document

The Emergence of Political Islam (Part two) -
Wikileaks’s leaked document

Ethiopia: Prospects for Peace in Ogaden

“Any renewed peace talks in the fast-evolving regional landscape will face considerable challenges. But despite the gloom surrounding last October’s impasse, the opportunity to transcend decades of conflict should not be missed”....EJ Hogendoorn, Crisis Group’s Africa Deputy Program Director 

Nairobi/Brussels

The most credible attempt at talks to end decades of armed conflict in Ogaden may soon resume, but concerted efforts need to be made to guide them to a peaceful resolution.

In its latest report, Ethiopia: Prospects for Peace in Ogaden, the International Crisis Group examines the roots of longstanding conflict in the Somali-inhabited region of Ethiopia and the prospects for renewed dialogue. The first direct talks between the government and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) began last year, facilitated by Kenya, but stalled, ostensibly over the rebels’ refusal to recognise the constitution. That procedural obstacle, however, concealed deeper divisions between the parties, as well as uncertainty in an Ethiopian political leadership still finding its way following the death last year of long-time Prime Minister Meles Zenawi; the ONLF’s relative inexperience in negotiation; and the Kenyan team’s distraction by their country’s March 2013 elections.
The report’s major findings and recommendations are:

• The talks are an historic opportunity, but a durable agreement will require unprecedented concessions by both sides. Each needs to develop a broader political vision in order to negotiate a shared and inclusive peace.
• A peace deal could build upon investments the federal government has made over the last five years in the Somali regional state and accelerate the opportunities for economic growth in the marginalised region, not least by enabling oil and gas exploration. But without a new political compact between Ethiopian Somalis and the Ethiopian state, the existing gains and potential growth will be fragile.
• An end to the Ogaden conflict could also bring significant benefits of wider peace and economic integration, including across the borders in Kenya and Somalia, but big projects such as the Lamu Port-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSETT) Corridor must be matched by community-level, cross-border political and economic ties.
• The presence of a Kenyan team as a third-party mediator is a brave and welcome innovation, but its role needs greater recognition and support. Institutional and technical backing could be provided by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional peace and security organisation that is already engaged in relevant processes.

“There are solid reasons why this is a promising time to move to meaningful talks”, says Cedric Barnes, Crisis Group’s Horn of Africa Project Director. “Two decades of deadly conflict and a relatively successful government counter-insurgency campaign have exhausted the local Ethiopian-Somali population sufficiently to push the ONLF back to the table”.

“Any renewed peace talks in the fast-evolving regional landscape will face considerable challenges”, says EJ Hogendoorn, Crisis Group’s Africa Deputy Program Director. “But despite the gloom surrounding last October’s impasse, the opportunity to transcend decades of conflict should not be missed”.

Read complete report: http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/media-releases/2013/africa/ethiopia-prospects-for-peace-in-ogaden.aspx

Source: crisesgroup

Ethiopia experience awakens the senses

 

This is a typical dwelling in the Afar village near the Bilen Lodge in Ethiopia. Lions and cheetahs are in the immediate area. Livestock are kept in pens made of tree branches to keep the big cats out. / Courtesy of David Fanning

Written by David Fanning For the Coloradoan

I am not familiar with African lions. But when a lion roars in the dead of night, just 15 feet away from me, there is no mistaking the sound.

I bolt upright in my bed, eyes wide, heart pounding.

I am at an eco-lodge on the edge of the Rift Valley in the Afar tribal area of eastern Ethiopia. I am sleeping in a flimsy thatched hut, with an even flimsier screen door, which I pray I remembered to latch before I got into bed.

There is a full moon, and as I rush to look out the screened window above my bed I can just make out the tawny back of a lion sauntering away from me. It is my first night away from Addis Ababa, where I have been teaching a software class for three weeks, and my African travels have suddenly gotten a lot more interesting.

I had an inkling this might happen when I arrived at the converted hunting camp on the banks of a dry riverbed the day before. The Afar people are herders, and on the long, dusty drive to the lodge from the one paved road in this part of Ethiopia, I saw small herds of the skinniest cattle I have ever seen, ribs protruding.

This land is in a chronic state of drought, and this year is especially bad. The cattle are driven by small boys with large sticks. Adults carry heavier weapons as I get closer to the lodge and the small Afar village just beyond. The “bellman” — an Afar tribesman who picks up my backpack with one hand and with the other carries an AK-47 rifle by the barrel balanced on his shoulder — escorts me to my hut.

At dawn, I awoke wondering if I had suffered a bad dream. But, no, there are lion prints everywhere in the dusty ground surrounding the hut. I came here to see African birds, but there is other wildlife milling about. I see warthogs in the near distance foraging, and last night delicate dik-diks — tiny deer with huge brown eyes right out of a Disney movie — were curious about my presence and walked to within a few yards of me.

I reach for my binoculars to get a closer look at the warthogs. Suddenly, they look up, wary. I follow their gaze with my binoculars to find they are looking at a cheetah, moving slowly along the path young children were walking on yesterday as they came and went from the Afar village.


My heart pounds again. Not from fear, but from excitement. I have now seen two of the three big cats living in Ethiopia within hours of each other. I’ve lived in Colorado most of my life surrounded by mountain lions and have never seen so much as a glimpse of them.

Unfortunately, there is no one at breakfast to hear my story. I have arrived at the lodge in the rainy season and am the only guest. The manager patiently listens to my excited yammering, smiling politely, understanding every fifth word it appears. Finally, he admits, “Yes, there is a lion.” We stand, smiling at each other, saying nothing more. This is going to be a good day.

Birding and beyond
Ethiopia is one of the driest, poorest, safest countries in Africa. I walked freely on the streets of Addis Ababa and felt in no danger at any time, although I did not walk at night. The danger at night is from falling into gaping holes in the sidewalk to the sewer below. The holes are unmarked and hard to see on the almost always unlit city streets.

The city was interesting, but my travel interests lie mostly outside of cities, and I was eager to get into the countryside in this ecologically diverse country. I arranged for a combination driver/naturalist with an ecotourism company in Addis to take me to some of the prime birding areas along the Awash River, toward Harar, and along the Rift Valley lakes, south of Addis. Here, I expected to see many of the 800 species of birds found in Ethiopia.

My plan was to bird for four days, then have my driver drop me off in Dodola, near the Bale Mountains, where I would hike for a week and find my own way back to Addis.

The Germans have built a series of huts in the Bale Mountains, and mountain guides will take you around to them. There are no trails. Or, rather, there are hundreds of trails — all unmarked — which is why a guide is essential. I planned to spend the week living rough and looking for the critically endangered Ethiopian wolf and the endemic mountain nyala, an antelope species with two extraordinary spiral horns. Although I had a plan, I also subscribe to Lao Tzu’s adage, “A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” I believe in serendipity.

I arrived in Dodola unannounced because cellphone reception and Internet connections are intermittent, a common problem in Ethiopia. I assumed guides would be available in the rainy season when tourists are scarce. There was a guide, but they couldn’t locate a horse.

“But, I don’t want a horse,’’ I explained, “I want to walk.” I gathered from the general hubbub and how often I had to repeat this statement that I was the first American tourist to ever set foot on the ground in the Bale Mountains.

My guide for the trip was a young man named Ayuno. He had grown up in the area and knew the region intimately. Because he spoke English, he was often hired by scientists who came to the Bale Mountains to study forestry or wildlife ecology.

We had numerous long conversations around a fire, waiting out a rain or hailstorm, in which I learned about everything from forest ecology to wildlife biology to the customs and problems of rural Ethiopians. My time with Ayuno was some of the best I have ever spent in the mountains.

Experiencing the beat of the country
One day we arrived at a German hut in late afternoon. Ayuno asked the hut caretaker, as usual, to bring us some fresh cow milk for our coffee and some delicious flat bread that is baked over an open fire.

The caretaker was gone longer than normal, and there were a number of people milling around the caretaker’s hut. I asked what was going on. They were preparing for a local religious celebration, Ayuno told me, which would be held that evening. People from all over the region were gathering.

Ethiopia has deep Christian roots, but in recent memory it was run by a communist government that had outlawed most religious activity. Now, many people in the country are practicing Muslims. The rural people in this region, Ayuno told me, borrowed spiritual practices from many religions but tended to favor the old traditional African religions with animal deities and powers. He would see if he could get us invited to the celebration.

About an hour after dark, the drumming started. Soon after, Ayuno and I walked over to the caretaker’s hut. The two rooms of the hut had been cleared and a small fire built on the dirt floor in the center of both rooms. Smoke escaped from the thatched roof in a convincing facsimile of a house aflame.

Over one fire, the women were clustered, cooking food. Around the other, two men, one blind, were drumming. It was nearly impossible to get into the drumming room, as it was filled with people of all ages, from small children to old men, dancing, singing and clapping hands. All eyes were on me as I came into the room and took a place near the wall to observe.

The next hour was a combination of a New York City rave and a Southern Baptist revival meeting. The drumming was nearly constant. The singing, clapping and stomping were palpable. Eyes closed, heads bobbing, sweat glistening in the smoke and flickering light, the dancers were enraptured by the rhythms, moved. Occasionally, the drumming would come to a climax and stop, and what sounded to me like a prayer was offered by various men in the room.

The only word I understood was “ferenji,” foreigner, white man. When it was spoken, people would turn shyly to look at me, but I took the words to be a blessing and replied with a smile. Ayuno, standing beside me, thought best not to translate, and held his silence, perhaps an outsider, too.

Eventually, I felt uncomfortable as an observer and decided to leave, shaking people’s hands softly in the Ethiopian way as I quietly made my way out. The drumming and singing continued until dawn. I have never had a more restful or pleasant sleep as I awoke periodically and listened to the sound wash over me.

I never did see an Ethiopian wolf or a nyala on on my travels, just signs of them. But, I will remember a lion roaring and the blessing of an Ethiopean prayer meeting in the Bale Mountains for the rest of my life.

David Fanning is a scientific software consultant in Fort Collins and a member of the Poudre Wilderness Volunteers.

As Falashmura aliyah winds down, Jewish groups turn their attention to other parts of Ethiopia

Various Jewish groups are continuing and even expanding projects serving wider populations in the country and elsewhere in Africa.  

The Jewish school at Gondar, in July. The end of immigration won't mean the end of a Jewish or Israeli presence in Ethiopia.Photo by Moshik Brin

By Anshel Pfeffer

GONDAR, Ethiopia − Jewish Agency representatives are considering whether to leave a sign at the Jewish community school here, commemorating the donations of Jewish philanthropists that were used to build and maintain the structures that will be handed over to the Gondar municipality in a few weeks. Meanwhile, preparations to dismantle the compound that served the Falashmura community are going ahead. The synagogue’s Torah scroll will be returned to Israel, the kindergarten and the kitchens that once fed thousands of children and mothers will close, and the property will be returned to its local owners after a 15-year lease. All to remove any doubt that mass emigration to Israel is over.

If the new campaign launched by Israeli relatives of the Falashmura ‏(descendants of Jews who converted to Christianity under pressure‏) who have been refused entry into Israel fails, an era of activity focusing on Jewish Ethiopian ‏(Beta Israel‏) and Falashmura communities and their immigration will come to an end. But this won’t mean an end to the presence of Israeli and Jewish organizations in this big African nation.

“We must not send out a message that we have taken 80,000 Jews out of Ethiopia and now everyone left can just f--- off,” declares Dr. Rick Hodes, the medical director for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Ethiopia. Hodes has worked in this country for a quarter of a century, and although the clinic he heads in Gondar was set up specifically to serve the thousands of Ethiopian citizens waiting to emigrate to Israel, the JDC ‏(an international humanitarian organization‏) has for decades also been expanding its“nonsectarian” work in Ethiopia and other developing countries. Indeed, Hodes says he never saw his role as caring primarily for Jewish patients, and over the years his clinic has served as a base for various international medical programs. These have included delegations of Israeli eye specialists who come to Africa to carry out thousands of cataract removals and also to work in one of Hodes’ main areas of expertise: treatment of children with severe spinal deformities. His hope is that with the end of organized aliyah from Ethiopia, funds will be found to allow the clinic to continue operations for the benefit of the broader population in need of modern medicine.

JDC operates other programs in Ethiopia beyond its medical projects, including assisting the local governments in building schools ‏(20 have already been built around the country‏) and digging sustainable wells in rural areas. Hodes emphasizes the historical connection underlying his work: “Jews have lived in Ethiopia for thousands of years. The entire history of this country is based on the story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. You can’t cut off this natural bond just like that.”

In addition to the motive of tikkun olam − literally, “repairing the world” − there is also a financial reason for the growing trend of Jewish-American organizations to undertake nonsectarian aid programs in developing countries such as Ethiopia: The young generation of Jewish philanthropists are less eager to donate to the same causes as their parents.

“Young donors say that there are enough Jewish oligarchs in Russia, so why do we have to give to welfare programs for the old Jews there,” says Hodes. “But they are interested in funding aid programs in places like Ethiopia and are happy to do so through a Jewish vehicle.”

Late Agency initiative

Late in the game, the Jewish Agency is also joining the tikkun olam trend and has started its own nonsectarian program. As its officials in Gondar began shutting down social welfare and educational operations serving the Falashmura, last year the Agency opened a volunteer center in town staffed with young Israelis and Diaspora Jews. This is the first Project Ten facility, one of 12 such centers planned − three in Israel and nine around the world. Two others subsequently opened in Kiryat Shmona, as well as in Hyderabad in southern India; next year two more are set to open in Mexico and Ghana. Each center has around 25 volunteers, who come for three-month stints, and five staff members. They work in local schools and orphanages, along with local NGOs working with street kids, and they also run programs helping single mothers set up tiny independent farms.

“We started in Gondar because it’s the one place in Africa with a Jewish presence,” says Nir Lahav, head of the Jewish Agency’s social activism unit. The plan is to set up a network of centers with 2,000 volunteers ‏(half of them Israelis‏), but Lahav admits that the pace is slow and that it’s particularly hard to enlist young volunteers from the Diaspora, who are in the middle of college or starting out in their careers. He also has to contend with skeptics within the Agency who believe that during a period of shrinking budgets, the organization should focus on its core missions of strengthening Jewish communities and encouraging aliyah and absorption of immigrants.

“This isn’t instead of working with Jews,” insists Lahav. “On the contrary, those who volunteer continue afterward to work within their [own] communities, and it connects young people from the Diaspora to their Jewish roots and to Israel. Working in the developing world is 21st-century Zionism.”

Supporters of nonsectarian work, in the Agency and other Jewish organizations, believe that Israel lags behind Western nations in formulating and financing a strategic plan of international aid ‏(see box‏).

“We [Israelis] think that what’s important is [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu making speeches at the United Nations, and don’t realize that the best way to represent Israel is through programs like these,” a senior operative with one of the organizations says bitterly.

However, while it gets little publicity, the International Cooperation Agency ‏(MASHAV‏) within the Foreign Ministry has been working for more than five years on aid programs in Ethiopia and invests NIS 3 million in them annually.

“We are setting up in Ethiopia, together with USAID, a network of 20 agricultural training centers,” says Ephraim Ben Matityahu, the director of programs at MASHAV, “and together with the German government we are working on irrigation solutions for arid regions.”

For the Foreign Ministry, this isn’t just tikkun olam, nor do the aid programs have a connection to the Falashmura emigration: Israel has diplomatic, financial and strategic interests in Ethiopia, which is undergoing major development and is becoming a major political and financial hub in the continent, with Addis Ababa as headquarters of the African Union. As a Christian nation, too, it serves ‏(together with Eritrea‏) as a buffer zone between Sudan and other African Muslim nations and the Arabian Peninsula across the Red Sea. According to foreign sources, Israel and Ethiopia also cooperate closely on security and intelligence matters.

Meager investment abroad

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has set for its members a standard of 0.35 percent of GDP for investment in developing countries. Israel currently dedicates just 0.07 percent of its GDP for what the OECD calls Official Development Assistance, and this includes all the budgets for absorbing Ethiopian immigrants and refugees from around the world. The fact that Israel is spending only a fifth of the specified amount on aid means its government cannot take part in the international development forums of the OECD, policy-making or other major programs. Furthermore, in the absence of substantial funding, Israel cannot participate in large infrastructure-building projects in the developing world. Instead, it focuses its limited resources mainly on training programs that include hundreds of courses run by Israeli experts around the world and in Israel for 2,500 trainees each year, mainly in the fields of advanced agriculture, entrepreneurship and water and educational technology. The Foreign Ministry naturally blames the treasury for its unwillingness to increase the allocations for programs abroad.

Source: haaretz.com/jewish-world/

Somalia: Djibouti oo hubeysay 1000 askari oo loo tababaray dowladda Somalia

Dowladda Djibouti ayaa maanta hub iyo gaadiid ku qalabeysay 1,000 oo ka tirsan ciidamada xoogga dalka Soomaaliya, kuwaas oo tababar  dhowaan loogu soo xiray xerada Lamagalaay ee bartamaha magaalada Beledweyne.

Wasiirka gaashaandhigga ee Jamhuuriyadda Djibouti, Xasan Dharaar Hufane oo hubka iyo gaadiidka ku wareejiyay dhiggiisa Soomaaliya oo ay Beledweyne ku kulmeen ayaa tilmaamay inay tani dhiirragelin u tahay ciidamada.

Wuxuu wasiirku sheegay in deeqda ay isugu jirtay toban gaari oo ah kuwa ciidamada oo laba ay yihiin kuwa gaashaaman iyo hub uusan cadadkoodu sheegin.

Cabdixakiin Xaaji Maxamuud Fiqi, wasiirka gaashaandhigga ee Soomaaliya ayaa qalabka ciidamada kala wareegay dhiggiisa Djibouti, waxaanu ku wareejiyay saraakiisha dowladda iyo AMISOM, isagoo Djibouti uga mahadceliyay taageerada joogtada ah ee ay dowladda Soomaaliya la garab-taagan tahay.

Wuxuu tilmaamay inuu hubkaas wax badan ka tari doonto dedaallada lagu xoojinayo ammaanka.

Wafdiga uu hoggaaminayay wasiirka gaashaandhigga oo Beledweyne kula ciiday ciidamada xoogga dalka ayaa maanta dib ugu laabtay magaalada Muqdisho.

Wasiirka gaashaandhigga Jibuuti Xasan Dharaar Hufane ayaa isna maanta dib ugu laabtay magaalada Jibuuti, kaddib kulan uu Beledweyne kula qaatay ciidamada AMISOM iyo kuwa xoogga dalka Soomaaliya.